How harmful is Inspirational porn?

‘Inspirational porn’ what do those two words mean to you?

The saying goes you “learn something new everyday” and if I am being completely honest that’s very true. It wasn’t until last year I came across the saying inspirational porn, unaware of what it actually meant. I wanted to dig deeper and find out more which forced me to confront my own role as a disabled person.

Inspiration porn pops up everywhere including TV, film, documentaries even the media. Most days you’ll come across at least one story or a video that’s gone viral describing disabled people as ‘overcoming their condition’.

So what is inspirational porn exactly – It is when you consider someone as inspirational solely because they have a disability/impairment. Why is that considered as inspirational? Because we exist? Does that make sense you? Finding people inspirational because of what they do; maybe that would include success in the face of adversity, maybe that adversity includes disability/impairment.

Now, you’re probably thinking, “I would never do this!” and I’m sure that’s true when reading it like this, you never would. But you’ve almost definitely seen inspiration porn, and maybe even shared it without realizing what it meant – it’s ok to admit you didn’t understand heck I will openly admit I have shared at some point in my life and I’m disabled some people might roll their eyes and say ‘well you should know better’. But it’s okay to not understand why it’s a problem, it’s when you then have the knowledge but still continue to do something that’s harmful to others.

Why is this a problem? The first example that comes to my mind are all the inspirational posters that feature people with some type of disability/impairments, like a wheelchair-user athlete or a child with prosthetic legs. Often these posters have something like”The only disability is a bad attitude” or “What’s your excuse?”.

This automatically suggests that a disabled person’s worth is measured by what they can achieve ‘against all odds’ by how closely they can replicate the typical life of a non-disabled person.

As harsh as this sounds the disabled community doesn’t exist to inspire others. Where as it is inspiring when someone does something incredible, just continuing to exist as independently as possible when you do have a disability/impairment isn’t incredible.

Through researching I found that ‘inspirational Porn’ isn’t a new term or phrase here’s a post by Cara Liebowitz back in 2015 in which she explains it to a non-disabled person in it, she says, “Reducing a human being – and a stranger, at that – to “inspiring” or “brave” or any of those labels is problematic, because you’re filling in qualities that may or may not be true in order to make yourself feel better.

Is there a solution? Absolutely yes. I believe every problem has a solution with in reason of course, it’s just how you solve that problem – ask yourself, “What did this person do that was inspiring or brave?” If the answer is, “They where in their wheelchair outside of the house,” when all they are doing is their normal weekly shop, then you are using them as inspiration porn. In other words it’s really simple in the grand scheme of things the solution is to stop, think and be more self-aware of why someone actually inspires you.

So my question is? what does the phrase ‘inspirational porn’ mean to you, have you ever come across it, shared it or like myself just learnt about it recently. Leave me a comment.

Kisses K

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